INVESTIGATING THE CAUSES OF FREQUENT FAILURES ON MAINTAINED ASPHALT PAVEMENT FEDERAL ROADS IN

Ethiopia has lost precious infrastructure worth billions of dollars through unnecessary deterioration of the national roads (Jovanovic, 2014). Large road networks, built at great expense, have been improperly maintained; more heavily used and abused than expected. If this neglect continues, the deterioration of maintained roads will accelerate as old pavements crumble and new ones outlive the initial period during which the effects of neglect are barely perceptible. Therefore, the Ethiopian road networks are in deplorable condition. The Government expenditure on roads accounts for a quarter of a years‘ infrastructural budget. The intention towards maintaining already existing roads is given less emphasis but causing much damage to the country‘s ongoing development in the road sector. In this study, document review, observation and questionnaire survey methods were used to gather the required data. During document review, three years annual reports of pavement maintenance roads were acquired from the Central District Region of the ERA. Similarly, data were acquired from contractors and consultants that were involved in road maintenance activities and from maintained road users from selected sites to investigate the factor that cause failures of maintained roads. During visual observation, five sites were selected and the results revealed that the maintained roads were utilized by overloaded trucks, pavements were aged, severe weather was witnessed, drainages were poor, the construction quality was poor and the construction materials were substandard, the maintenance management system were poor and all the above in aggregated caused pavement deterioration of the maintained roads. In addition to document review and observation, a questionnaire survey was conducted and results were analyzed using average index according to participants' perspectives. The findings of questionnaire showed that workers‘ skill, maintenance culture, quality materials and soil condition, uneven increase/fluctuation of material price, shortage of material, manpower and lack of efficient/competent contractor were the major causes for pavement deterioration. In addition, budget constraints, limited skilled manpower and absence of appropriate machinery were the major constraints for implementation of effective road maintenance works at the ERA costing the Nation dearly. Increase in travel time, increase in fuel consumption on frequently maintained asphalt pavement roads implied that the road users were not satisfied either. Finally, possible recommendation forwarded as per the achievement of analysis in order to improve the major causes and minimize the problems of poor maintenance culture through using maintenance procedures applied in Ethiopia